


Make Mortal Dreams Come True

by spoilers



Category: Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoilers/pseuds/spoilers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They call you the King of Evil, you know," was  all Nabooru had to say to him after the raid.</p><p>He laughed. "Good. Let the Hylians be afraid. At least they know I'm King."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Mortal Dreams Come True

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boywonder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boywonder/gifts).



When he was a child, his sisters saw no need for him to leave the desert, and if asked, he would agree. He grew to know every rock in the empty wastelands and could make the walk to the temple blindfolded. He could scramble over every building and shoot every target on even the most wild horses. They wanted him free from outside influences as he developed, to keep him Gerudo to the core, and then as he grew older and ready to see the world beyond, the war broke out. No matter how confident the Gerudo were in their fighting capabilities, he was too important to endanger on the front lines of the war; they could not risk losing their king to a stray arrow.

He understood, but he was nearly a man, and would not have the Hylians thinking he was too much of a coward to fight. So he rode out with warriors all around him, for just one battle, and the air was suddenly fresh and soft, the baking heat absent under the same sun. He had jumped off his horse and touched the silt in the ground, crumbled the soil between his fingers and felt its moisture. When he returned to the desert with his sisters, he saw how each of them relaxed, not just by passing through the guard towers but from reuniting with the sand itself, but all he could feel was the absences.

It was the first time he ever saw what they were missing.

\----

"The Hylians grown their own food. The Gorons mine their rocks, and the Zora swim freely in their waters. The children of the forest stay safe in their trees. Why do you think it is just the Gerudo who raid the spoils of the others?" he asked, trailing his fingers along the edges of the map.

"It's what we do." Nabooru shifted, slouched against the doorway with her arms crossed. He had the sudden urge to snap at her to straighten up. "What's your point?"

"We do it because we must. While they have their fields and their forests and lakes, we have nothing but sand and salt. We take, or else we die. Why are we confined to this barren rock, when just across the canyon there are children growing fat and soft with no hardship at all?"

"The desert is our home," was what she said, blunt like any Gerudo should be, but its stubbornness, her willful ignorance, frustrated him. Was she doubting him? Could she not see?

"It's our home for a reason. Who do you think put us there?" His fingers traced the points on the map, each one a spot where the boundaries between this world and the Sacred Realm were weaker, each one a spot where they had lost women to the quest when the boundaries proved still too strong. "Who keeps us here, and then attacks us and names _us_ the thieves when we try to survive despite their best efforts?"

She was silent for a second, but he could still feel her eyes, feel her disrespect seep out unchecked. "It's not the farmers."

The farmers. They had been convenient, a spot along the road when his women were hungry, when they had returned empty-handed from the mountains with no key to show for it and no fight to vent their righteous anger.

"So the farmers lost a few trifles. What do they have left? Productive fields and cattle and a sky that gives them rain more than once a year." He snorted. "Yes, worry for the farmers. Fret about _their_ livelihood. You sound like some Hylian woman."

"With your face turned to the grass like that, I could say the same thing."

His head snapped up at her tone, eyeing her dangerously. "Is that the way you speak to your king?"

She met his gaze, and something in her eyes hardened. "No," she said, and then, "sir."

He dismissed her with a violent wave of his hand, turning back to the maps. Why did he bother, when his women would be willingly obtuse, refuse to see the reality that the Goddesses had left in front of them?

The Triforce was the answer. Din had created the world for them, not just sand and heat and death, but rivers, grasslands, mountains, and lakes. Running water and sweet grasses and soft, grazing animals. Fields that could be plowed, soils that one could coax life from, rains that came frequently and worked with the land instead of sparse and hard, flooding immovable dirt and sand and washing away any attempts to shape the land for the better.

They had all accepted it-- had come to take pride in it, incorporating the desert into their sense of self without a single thought as to why it had to be that way. They thought the desert was what made them Gerudo, and that the desert was... just there, never a thought that anyone had put them there, had left them, specifically, there. As if they heard all the tales of the Goddesses and never stopped to think that loving Farore, when filling the world, had put the other races in the fields and set them aside in the wastelands.

Who could blame them for learning to love it? When someone tries to suppress you, shunt you aside, you get back at them by embracing it and making the best of it, but his people would not be oppressed any longer. They just had to come around and see it.

\----

The Hylian king's castle was large and cold; no wind had ever blown sand in when when the doors were opened, and no one had ever taken refuge inside for the sole purpose of avoiding the heat overhead. He strolled down the carpeted halls with his guards ringing behind him, all of them trekking the desert in and stirring up whispers where they walked. Thieves, bandits, desert mongrels, shrieking savages, invaders, they had heard it all before, and they wore the insults with pride. The Hylians would ignore their hypocrisy forever, cover their eyes and precious ears and refuse to see the reality for what it was until he could pull their hands down and show them, each and every one, how poorly they would survive if the tables had turned, if they were the ones trying to stand tall against corroding winds and scorching heat.

But today was not the day; today he needed to see the castle, and the Temple, and he would play nice until the other races opened their eyes as well, until they gave him what he asked for so he could take what should have been his from the beginning. The Hylian king sat in his throne, deaf to the pleas of the starving Gorons and defenseless Zora, all of whom would thank him in the future for doing what needed to be done and showing them how little this Hylian cared of their plight.

He sunk to one knee, fluid and willing. Let them all see the Gerudo dog play along, and let the sand in his boots soil the carpet under them.

The prickling sensation of being watched, distinct from the disgusted gazes of the knights around them, drew his glance to the window. Two children, a girl-- the princess, he assumed, glaring daggers like she expected him to strike her father then and there-- and a boy. A servant, maybe, or a pampered playmate, the both of them sneaking off to stare at the monster.

He'd give them something to talk about. He locked eyes with them and smiled.

\----

"They call you the King of Evil, you know," was all Nabooru had to say to him after the raid.

He laughed. "Good. Let the Hylians be afraid. At least they know I'm King."

She stared at him for a moment, then turned to leave. "It's not just the Hylians that say it."

\----

The temple was their hideout, a Gerudo secret hidden away in the sand, protected by the desert herself from any outsiders. It was the best space they had to plan. Not that the Hylians were even capable of pursuing them, not when the defenses of their own castle were so pitiful, but he would use the desert for the only advantage it could provide them as he prepared for total war. Now that the Gorons had access to their bombs and the Zora could take council from their guardian, there would be more than a token resistance. It was all the better this way; how else to prove himself worthy of the piece the Goddesses saw fit to leave him?

The mark on the back of his hand shone in the candlelight. It was worth more attention than the babbling around him. The women were concerned with all the minutiae, reigning hell upon the simple countryfolk and relocating the Gerudo into the fields, cutting off the water supply upriver and penetrating the woods, but he had only one concern.

"We need," he said, and the voices fell silent mid-sentence, "to find the other Triforce holders."

His Gerudo exchanged glances. "We're searching the kingdom, my lord, but it will take time."

"Find them." The Triforce was meant to be all his. Had he not the wisdom to find it? Was he not, by very fact of leading the Gerudo, facing the desert every day, worthy of Farore's precious courage? He had the most important piece, yes, but the legends always spoke of the power of all three-- and that moment when he touched it, that singular moment when it was all his, was enough to convince him. It was like pure magic coursing through him, like he could carve mountains and end lives in less effort than blinking, and just the effect of that one touch on the Sacred Realm...

Imagine what he could do to the world in the light if he could hold all three forever.

"My lord," another Gerudo said, voice verging more on demanding than respectful, "We need more specifics. We can't drag every person in the kingdom from her bed and--"

"Can't you?" he asked coolly, fist tightening. They took too much for granted, gave him too many excuses. He needed to remind them who in control. "You're the Gerudo. You're _my_ Gerudo. You are the fiercest fighters in the world, and you have me as your leader. Who will stop you?"

The halls at the foot of the Goddess were silent; enough that the clatter from outside carried. He jerked his head to his mothers, and they flew off to investigate dutifully. At least _they_ still remembered who he was, while the rest preferred to talk back and question and doubt him.

"They will be with those who fate thinks more worthy than I to lead. Check their rulers, check their scholars, and bring them to me so I can test what makes them so honored." That made them laugh, the room full of his most loyal, most capable girls, the ones who knew how those unfortunate enough to be chosen by destiny would pay for their arrogance. But there were still those who thought his daring to dream beyond the desert folly. Those who were too cowardly to speak their mind, like any Gerudo worth her salt, whispering instead to each other like rats in the Fortress, dissatisfied but cowering. Those who still thought to question whether he knew what was best for the Gerudo, as if he was not their king.

They would not question when he had the entire Triforce in hand.

Idly, he thought of icy blue eyes, the boy foolish enough to stand in his way but who had at least stood anyway; but the boy was trapped in the Sacred Realm, no doubt festering away like all those who had searched for the Triforce and failed before him.

Koume and Kotake appeared, Nabooru in between them with fire in her eyes and her head held high.

"At least one of the traitors has some backbone," he said, thoughts of the boy forgotten in his excitement, shifting forward as the mark on his hand itched to be exercised. "Hello, Nabooru."

\----

He knew the instant the third Triforce left the Sacred Realm by its absence, and realized in that moment where it had been all those years.

\----

"You won't win," the princess said, once she had deigned to stop prodding the crystal with her powers, searching for weakness and finding none.

He smiled as he played, the mark on the back of his hand gleaming as he was so close to triumph, so close to the completed Triforce for the first time in seven years. "Why not, Princess?" he asked, spirits high enough to indulge her. "Did you see it in a dream? Do you speak for Nayru? Do I go against her laws by daring to lift my head from the desert and leading my people towards your prosperity?"

"Do not pretend that you care for your people," she said, high and mighty from inside her little cage. "I have traveled these lands for years, and the only Gerudo I encountered outside of the desert were those in armor. There is no prosperity to be found anymore. You have turned this kingdom to ash."

His hands slammed indiscriminately on the organ keys as he stood, a flare of magic lashing out to silence her. "You brought this upon yourself," he roared, "when you thought to deny me what should always have been mine!"

She looked at him, cupping her face in her hand where he had struck her, eyes old and wise beyond her years, beyond mortality, and simply shook her head.

\----

The Sacred Realm, for that one glorious moment entirely under his command, was bleak and empty as he screamed out his rage to eternity. He cursed the sages in every way he knew how, cursing Link and Zelda most of all, roaring until he felt like there would be nothing left of him but anger and dashed hopes.

If the Goddesses could hear him, they didn't respond. They never would respond. All he had left was the glimmer in his hand, proof that at one point he had been favored, and the knowledge that they had utterly abandoned him.

He hoped they all choked on their celebrations, every last one of them. Every problem they encountered, every delay in their impossible perfect world, they would blame on him, and therefore continue to deny any sense of culpability. He would laugh and laugh and laugh if he could stomach it.

The Triforce of Power alone remained with him. Not Din's favor, nothing that anyone had given him. Destiny never smiled on him like it did those two _children,_ who were only still alive thanks to that accident. What he had was what he could take for himself, and nothing more.

But the Triforce was still of this place, and so he still had a modicum of control over it. There were still people here, thieves and adventurers who had been lost to time in their search, everyone who had failed at the quest that only he had ever conquered. He could find them. He could lead them. He could bide his time, until one day he could make good on his promises.

Slowly, in the empty mass around him, he found his footing and started to build.


End file.
